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Last night I asked google, "is the internet over?" This was the response (be warned if you have little tolerance for internet gore do not click). The result was both ironic and nostalgic, like a last stand for the unkempt wilderness the internet has been.

As I mentioned on Olena's post, it occurred to me the other night that lawlessness can be extremely beneficial to intelligence and the rapid growth of culture, particularly when it comes to the vast databases of music and movies we've stolen for our edification and enjoyment. It also struck me that those who've directly benefited from this lawlessness are simultaneously the most marketed to generation in history and a generation that's probably stolen more merchandise on a whole than any other group of people living in a semi-functional society.

But I've had a distinct sense for the past few months that the internet is no longer the frontier, that it's well on the way to becoming as practical and depoliticized as the telephone. While cyberwarfare may be making appearances in the newspaper for months or even years to come, it'll more likely be evidence of governmental meddling than radical uprising.

While I don't get off on illuminati flavored conspiracy theories, the use of Facebook friend photos to generate advertisements, in combination with the Supreme court decision, and Google deleting music blogs without warning has made me extremely aware how easily we can sleep through what promises to be (or already is) a corporate chokehold.

While this all seems a little bleak, it's actually rather refreshing to realize. I've been feeling a little coddled by the neverending stream of utopian rhetoric surrounding the internet, which I myself am guilty of propagating, and with good reason! But it seems about time we set our sites on a new frontier.

So...what comes after the Internet?

[ note, this post was written and published as private for a while so the news is old now...but still relevant ]

collective mattMon, Mar 8, 2010Permanent linkIs it possible that we will now begin to create more than one Internet? Internet2 is already off and running, where is internet3 and 4? Can I create my own personal internet? Maybe this one will be invite only (to ensure quality content, just like space collective.)

I think an important part in this next step is realizing what the internet is, in that it really isn't anything at all. It's just an extension of our universe which we can use to exchange information. I see the lines between reality and virtual beginning to cross, and soon we won't be able to separate them. I'd like to see the final result of this something like "The Gentle Seduction" one of my favorite posts here on SC. Maybe someday we will create new internets/universes too.

In a sea of infinite possibility there is bound to be some crap floating around, but it's important to not get caught up in that, and realize that 'evil' is a necessary part of freedom. The old media would love to make the internet look like the bad guy, the distraction, the immature, time waster, etc. In reality I feel that the internet is much more educational than TV will ever be, as it allows everyone to both gather unbiased information and share with others.
I do feel that there may be some impending tumult involving the internet and politics, but hopefully by then we've already got all the problems figured out.

As for illuminati/conspiracy theory, it really all comes down to greed. Most at the top are completely oblivious to the destruction they bring, and the system practically encourages this. You don't even have to call it a conspiracy if you just call it what it is: greed.

MonseigneurBienvenuMon, Mar 8, 2010Permanent linkI'm sure someone somewhere has an idea of what comes after the internet, as technology constantly progresses, if in secrecy or simply obscured from view of others, and theories continue to grow, turn back on themselves and grow some more. I think I quite like the idea of 'different internets', but I'm not sure that's a progression or something that is post rather ante, or prior to one internet. Whatever it all means, really.

Internet may become more constrained through the efforts of regulators and lawyers, who can do 'the online' as part of their graduate or post graduate course, but that is if regulation is necessarily in the best interests of those who can make it happen through time - I have very large doubts about that, and I'm sure 'they' realise it too.

To me, personally, internet has never seemed a frontier. It creeps and swallows, but only really adds efficiency with other 'frontiers' being actually positioned in more humble reality. Those are the frontiers one reaches by going through life and growing, making interpersonal networks, doing specialized learning, etc - simple sitting behind a computer screen will not allow you to reach them (even though it may someday). For now the internet is subservient - even if it is a frontier, we are far away from breaching it.

WildcatMon, Mar 8, 2010Permanent linkI do resonate with your concerns and yet I advise patience and the building of a coherent alternative, down to the minutest details. though, like you I tend to propagate ideas that are apparently utopian, I do not see myself as such however (a utopian I mean). I think that at the end of the day, taking the time to find the arguments and pillars of a different kind of world will win the day.
what comes after the net? a polytopia of course..:-)

MemoryShockSun, Mar 14, 2010Permanent linkI think the only addition to the internet would be more efficient browsing and interaction (perhaps thought to written type techs). It would of course have to be balanced with physical activity.

As a social tool...it is unequaled. Governments and Corporations, while they have enjoyed a relative lack of communication of there issues interpreted bias regarding their issues, now have a collective voice to deal with. I am not a fan of the Illuminati as well (archaic term and doesn't reflect socio fluctuations within the upper classes) but in the words of George Carlin, "There is no need for a formal conspiracy when interests converge."

But the internet is free for now. We have the option to keep it that way and make social communication and education more efficient and for the benefit of everyone...not just the so called elite anymore.

OlenaTue, Apr 27, 2010Permanent linkOver?!
Nooooooooooo! ;_; He is so young, our internet.
I can't imagine what life will be like if, when we are older, we look back on these (online) days as people now look back on the 80's, or the 60's. Wild, free. Beautiful.

The thought of the internet becoming something as horrible as TV is too depressing.

meganmayTue, Apr 27, 2010Permanent linkThat's so funny because I was JUST about the re-visit this thread Mrs. Olena. I don't think the internet is going to become like TV, just that it'll be a super practical educational tool, as it already is, hopefully without being terribly corrupted by non-neutral players. Just on the lookout for the wild ideas that are on the cusp of being realized. I haven't checked out the Netsukuku idea yet, but I just came across an extension of the internet3, 4, 5 idea that Collective Matt mentioned:

Indeed, Canton predicted a future in which the Internet is embedded just about everywhere: in every imaginable kind of object–from TVs to phones to walls–and that every product and device–even people–will have an IP address

The idea, is a worldwide system of intuitive networks that pay attention to us, know our likes and desires, and proactively feed us the information we need to act on such preferences....That means, he said, that each of us will have our own “personal Internet layer…that lives in your own personal Internet cloud [and] deciphers what’s next” for us. But it’s not so far off, he suggested. In fact, he said, as much as 30 percent of the technology necessary for such concepts to be part of our everyday lives has already been built.

At Singularity University, students are getting high-level, intense lectures on fields of study such as nanotechnology, biotech, AI, robotics, bioinformatics, and the like–all of which fall under the rubric of exponentially growing technology. And the Internet of the future is essentially a mashup of these technologies, Canton said.

These ideas are pretty derivative of theories introduced way back in the Sci-Fi Era, and a lot of them are being discussed here on SC today, but it's interesting that this comes out of the Singularity University, which is populated with people actually out to ENGINEER these things...!!!

Also, I'm just really excited about the idea that we won't be forever trapped behind a rectangular computer interface that's hardly changed since the day it was invented.

Wildcat, you should lecture at Singularity University! Let them know what effect all this will have on our HUMANITY

meganmayWed, Apr 28, 2010Permanent linkSeems like Facebook is well on the way to making this happen on a practical scale by connecting your profile to your browsing activity on the wider web with the "Like" plugin:

Every one of those "likes"—a billion statements of preference every day, 365 billion every year, at least—will get filed back at Facebook HQ. It is difficult to overestimate the value, to Facebook, of all this activity. Remember that the social network already has the world's largest database of connections among people. Now, very soon, it will also have the largest database connecting people to the things they enjoy, whether those things are news stories, restaurants, songs, books, movies, jeans, cosmetics, or anything else. Yes, lots of other firms mine our online activity, but Facebook's system will be all the more powerful because it is voluntary. We, Facebook's hordes, are actively filling in the slots in its database, giving the company an extremely accurate picture of ourselves and our friends. No other company will have anything like Facebook's towering database of human intentions and desires—not even Google.

OlenaThu, Apr 29, 2010Permanent linkAhh so you're more interested in expansion rather than an "end". I got all panicked! hahaha.

I hadn't heard of SU before; it sounds amazing!

I'm excited by the idea of technology by and for us, but at times it's a little scary, as in your Facebook example. It's too easy to voluntarily relinquish privacy without thinking much of it. At some level, I would like to remain profoundly disconnected, all depending on what particular connections will mean or bring, personally or for us as a whole...

meganmayThu, Apr 29, 2010Permanent linkThis is a very good post by Spaceweaver on the future of connection/disconnection. It's a Space Collective classic.

Also, here's an interesting piece of info:

The concept of privacy is most often associated with Western culture, English and North American in particular. According to some researchers, the concept of privacy sets Anglo-American culture apart even from other Western European cultures such as French or Italian. The concept is not universal and remained virtually unknown in some cultures until recent times. A word "privacy" is sometimes regarded as untranslatable.

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